The Drow and the Dagger
by Eldacar
Summary: This is a fic I wrote one day while bored...it includes a favorite character of mine. sorry, it's not very long yet. pls read and review! oops...ps-the last sentence? ignore it.


Drow.

It is only a word, is it not? But it is a word that most fear to speak, a word that makes every surface dweller tremble in fear and hatred. The sound of that one word carries a thousand evil connotations with it: the sibilant hissing of vipers on snake-headed whips; the soft whisper of a hidden blade drawing free of its scabbard; the unholy incantations of Lloth's merciless priestesses. That single syllable evokes more dread and abhorrence than any other in the Realms.

And why? Certainly the drow do not appear to be deserving of this intolerable revulsion. They are elfin, deceptively delicate and slender, with features sharp, haunting and beautiful. Their snowy white hair glows like the moon; their ebony skin swallows light, instead of reflecting it. They move without a whisper, graceful as hunting cats.

But it is all merely a façade. The drow are treacherous and wicked, cruel and malicious. Their world is a twisted, roiling mass of deceit and perversion concealed beneath a fey mask. Those who encounter them, though, are seldom deluded by that tantalizing disguise. The evil reputation of the dark elves has spread throughout the Realms and even into other planes of existence, so few are caught unaware.

There is abundant proof of that rule to be found…but none today, none in the stone and adamantite structure that housed the drow city's—Ched Nasad's—fighters-in-training, where a fresh, as yet untrained group of students awaited their first lesson in the courtyard.

Here, in this courtyard, was where the training of Elaith Vonn'kut of House Vonn'kut, Twelfth House of Ched Nasad, was about to begin. And here, in this courtyard, ten years later, was where his life would take an abrupt turn.

But first, the story.

«         †        »

Tassna of House Vonn'kut watched her younger brother floating in the air next to an obsidian sculpture, small hands working the cleaning brushes in a blur as he polished the black stone. With her infravision she could see the lines of heat crisscrossing his bare back, the legacy of his last 'inspirational' discussion with their elder sister Maleva. She had beaten him for speaking out of turn; and to a matron mother, no less! Yet that specific incident was only one of many. Elaith could be a stubborn child.

Tassna sighed. One hand dropped to her belt to absently finger her whip. She understood the gain in beating a child—particularly a male child—and besides, in the drow culture it was widely practiced and accepted. A lesson learned in that fashion was not soon forgotten. But still…when Elaith did not look down at her, his weanmother, and smile every now and then as he usually did, pangs of remorse managed to worm their way inside her. _What is it that I lose every time we beat him? I feel it, as tangibly as the handle of my whip in my palm, but I know not what it is. What more could Elaith become if he was not beaten, or treated harshly or…raised as a drow? The sacrilege of the thought horrified her. Hurriedly Tassna brushed it away. She aspired to become a high priestess of Lloth the Merciless, the Spider Queen, the dark elven deity of chaos! Such ideas were not in keeping with her religion, and they would surely get her into trouble._

Tassna growled to herself and uncoiled her whip. She would have to punish Elaith again this day, for the blasphemous concepts he had planted within her.

«         †        »

Elaith stood restlessly at his weanmother's side. These times of communal worship, when all of House Vonn'kut gathered to pay homage to Lloth, were among his least favorite events of the day. Firstly, they always emphasized the supremacy of females. This was one of the first lessons he had ever learned: he was inferior to the drow females. There was no room for dissent.

Secondly, these rituals were excruciatingly tedious, mainly because he was not allowed to speak or raise his gaze above the stone floor. All he could do was breathe, blink, and obey. Elaith dared not defy the rules, for Maleva was always nearby, always eager to punish him for the slightest error.

He sighed and quickly stifled it.

At first these services had fascinated and frightened him. The power of the manifestations of Lloth that he had witnessed had completely overawed him, as had the unholy ceremonies and rites performed every tenday. After seven years, though, even these lost their appeal.

Elaith did not know how long the services went on—days, it seemed!—but finally they ended, and he was able to follow Tassna out of the chapel. Quickly she led him down the hallway, but instead of going into the small bare room that served her charge as bedroom and classroom, she went next door to her own private chamber. Tassna bid Elaith to wait outside while she went in to fetch something—what, she did not say. While she did so, Elaith stood against the wall, still staring at the floor, hands behind his back. He desperately wanted to peek inside his sister's room. What wonders might be hidden there? The young drow could not resist. Slowly, cautiously, he leaned around the doorjamb, straining to see and afraid of the consequences.

But he never got the chance. Before he even got close enough, the door had slammed shut and Tassna stood beside him again.

"Come," she ordered brusquely. Hurriedly Elaith fell in step behind her. A small part of him wondered why Tassna had not punished him for attempting to view what he was not allowed to see, for she definitely knew he had. Maleva certainly would have beaten him again. Elaith shrugged the thoughts away. For some reason, it had always been this way between himself and his weanmother, though he had quickly discerned that this was not the norm of drow upbringing. Normally weanmothers were cruel, brutal and impersonal teachers. Tassna, on the other hand, was the closest thing Elaith had ever had to a mother. His blood mother—mother indeed!—was Matron Vartha, a true drow female if ever there was one. She was matron of House Vonn'kut, and as such, strived for two things: to gain an increasingly higher place in Ched Nasad's social hierarchy, and to gain the favor of Lloth. Elaith had not once spoken with her. At birth, he had been turned over to Tassna. She had become his weanmother—and yet, she was so much more to him, more than he had realized, he now noted. She was still harsh with him, quick to use her whip to remind him of the rules. But there were also moments when she did not seem so severe. It was as though she allowed her gentler side to come through to her baby brother.

Suddenly the pair had reached their destination: the small, bare room just down that hall from Tassna's that was Elaith's own. It was entirely undecorated and sparsely furnished: a bed, two chairs, and a small table were the only things in the room. There was no need for anything more; between eating, sleeping, learning and cleaning the chapel, he hardly had the time—or the energy, for that matter—for much else.

"Sit," Tassna commanded. He obeyed, careful to keep his jade green eyes on the table. At first he had naturally tended to look others in the eye. No more, however. Tassna had wasted no time beating that particular impulse out of him.

The weanmother unwrapped the package she'd taken from her room. A marvelous curved dagger fell out of the cloth's folds onto the stone tabletop. Elaith gasped. It was by far the most beautiful weapon he'd ever seen: made of adamantite, the hardest metal in all the Realms, with a hilt sculpted into the shape of a strange creature he had never seen before and did not know the name of. The curving blade was about two handspans in length. A series of mystical runes ran the duration of the curving metal, glowing somehow, but not with any visible light. The carved hilt was highlighted in the same way, and had a pommel stone of black sapphire.

Magnificent as the dagger was, though, it seemed to shift constantly. The runes along the side were unfocused. None were readable. The entire weapon looked as though it was just on the edge of corporeality.

Tassna did not waste time in letting Elaith look his fill. "Pick it up," she instructed. "See how it does not appear quite real? Pick it up and make it more substantial."

"How?" Elaith dared to ask after a pause.

"Look at it, touch it, feel it, and will it to do so."

The young drow nodded and took a deep breath. He had to do this well, or else…

Failure was not acceptable.

Elaith scrutinized the design on the hilt, studying the shape intensely. His eyes glowed red as he shifted them to the infrared spectrum. A strange song was emanating from the blade, not heard but rather sensed. He felt compelled to reach out and pick it up. But he did not—he had seen many dangerous magical artifacts in his short life, and for all he knew, this might be one of them.

Tassna shifted and tried to curb her impatience. This was important. The dagger had come into the hands of Matron Vartha through a mighty demon lord, who had hinted that it held more power than was imaginable. The matron was eager to seize this power, and quickly, for she held ambitions for House Vonn'kut becoming more than just the twelfth house…but the demon had said that the power could only be awakened by an innocent. These were in short supply in drow society, and Matron Vartha was unwilling to risk the dagger's secret in order to procure one such. Thus, Elaith was to be used to solve the weapon's riddle. There was a slim chance that he, as an untainted child, might be able to do it. So, as his weanmother, Tassna had been commanded to present her charge with the dagger and see what came of it.

Anticipation glowing in his eyes, Elaith finally stretched out a hand and took up the blade.

«         †        »

Tassna cried out, falling back and flinging a hand up to shield her sensitive eyes from the suddenly blinding glare surrounding her little brother. Her lips moved rapidly as she cast a quick spell that would enable her to see, but the light had faded by the time she had finished. What she saw was astounding.

Elaith was now standing, floating a few inches off the floor, encased in a hazy globe of tiny multicolored specks. The dagger hung suspended in midair a foot away from his face, rotating slowly. His eyes were riveted on it. But they seemed somehow empty, as though he was seeing something entirely different from what was before him. Then the young drow began to grow—not just get bigger, but older as well. His stark white hair lengthened past his shoulders. A wizard's robe covered his ragged clothing. His face changed, subtly but definitely. Finally he stood as a full-grown drow wizard, tall and lithe, who wore power like a cloak. Slowly he turned to face his weanmother. Tassna gasped and shrank back, awed and a little frightened by the sheer amount of wisdom and the deep, deep sadness in her brother's eyes—which now, instead of being the jade green of before, were the same hue as the black sapphire set in the dagger's pommel.

There came a flash of brilliant white light. The older drow wizard disappeared, and in his place stood the young child that Elaith was. The little drow turned a blank look upon his elder sister. Tassna inhaled sharply. His eyes had not changed back to their former emerald. They were still the color of black sapphire.

The dagger tumbled from his hand, and Elaith collapsed to the stone floor.

«         †        »

Hesitantly, the weanmother approached the still form of her brother and knelt beside him. But her concern was not for the boy—it was for the dagger. Wrapping a scrap of cloth around her hand, she picked it up and scrutinized it closely.

Many minutes later, Tassna looked down at Elaith's unmoving body with new respect. Matron Vartha would be pleased with the changes he had wrought in the dagger: it was now more of this plane. The runes were better focused. One was legible: ζﮑﷲش 3;. .

Translated into the drow tongue, it read 'Elaith Blackmoon'.

«         †        »

Elaith felt as if he were wavering up from the depths of an impossibly deep void, like a bubble floating slowly to the surface of a liquid. He opened his eyes. The room—_not mine, he noted—slid slowly into focus. The first thing that registered was the fiery agony bathing his right palm. But where in the Nine Hells had that come from? He had not done anything to make it burn so. Shifting a little, Elaith managed to look down at the offending limb. The sight of the silver scar, exactly like the hilt of a certain dagger, brought a rush of memories flooding back. What he had seen when he picked up the dagger…_

The young drow groaned and lay back on the bed—not his own!—closing his eyes and trying not to think about it. Best not to dwell on things of that nature.

But he could not help but think about it. Images flooded his mind, and before long he was lost in the swirl of their flow. For a long time Elaith lay still, living and reliving the awful moment…where years had suddenly become seconds, and each second lasted for eternity. Cries—of fear, of anger, of pain—echoed from some remote location. Sinister figures loomed in his mind's eye. Wild, terrifying flashes of disjointed images and sounds battled against an overwhelming sense of loss and betrayal. In the midst of it all Elaith saw his sister's face, and suddenly, in a horrible, awful way, he knew. He knew that Tassna, the closest thing he had to a mother, the only being he cared for and who he had believed cared for him as well, would be the one to betray him.

Shivering despite his warm blankets, Elaith buried his face in arms and wept. But his still-exhausted body demanded rest. As he felt himself drifting towards sleep, a vague sense of relief washed over him, and he welcomed oblivion for the peace it would bring.

«         †        »

It was thus that Tassna found him, curled up in the sheets of the opulent new bed.

  


Claret blood of young gazelle ebony swan with darkness descended and battle won, come to me, my ebony swan


End file.
